Stamford/Greenwich residents worried barges will ruin...

1of12Paddleboarders and kayakers use the water in Stamford Harbor.Photo: Tyler Sizemore / Hearst Connecticut Media

2of12The Harbor Management Commission , which oversees Stamford Harbor, is one of the Stamford boards and commissions that has vacancy or anticipated vacancy.Photo: Tyler Sizemore / Hearst Connecticut Media

3of12Paddleboarders and kayakers in Stamford Harbor, as seen from Rocky Point Club in Old Greenwich.Photo: Tyler Sizemore / Hearst Connecticut Media

4of12Paddleboarders and kayakers use the water in Stamford Harbor seen from Rocky Point Club in Old Greenwich, Conn. Sunday, May 26, 2019. Weeks Marine has asked to have new moorings placed in Stamford/Greenwich waters of the Long Island Sound less than half a mile away from Rocky Point in Old Greenwich. The moorings would bouy large 150-foot barges that would disrupt recreational water activities and pose safety risks, as well as be an eyesore to residents of Stamford and Old Greenwich on the water.Photo: Tyler Sizemore / Hearst Connecticut Media

5of12Paddleboarders and kayakers use the water in Stamford Harbor seen from Rocky Point Club in Old Greenwich, Conn. Sunday, May 26, 2019. Weeks Marine has asked to have new moorings placed in Stamford/Greenwich waters of the Long Island Sound less than half a mile away from Rocky Point in Old Greenwich. The moorings would bouy large 150-foot barges that would disrupt recreational water activities and pose safety risks, as well as be an eyesore to residents of Stamford and Old Greenwich on the water.Photo: Tyler Sizemore / Hearst Connecticut Media

6of12Paddleboarders and kayakers use the water in Stamford Harbor seen from Rocky Point Club in Old Greenwich, Conn. Sunday, May 26, 2019. Weeks Marine has asked to have new moorings placed in Stamford/Greenwich waters of the Long Island Sound less than a mile away from Rocky Point in Old Greenwich.Photo: Tyler Sizemore / Hearst Connecticut Media

7of12Paddleboarders and kayakers use the water in Stamford Harbor seen from Rocky Point Club in Old Greenwich, Conn. Sunday, May 26, 2019. Weeks Marine has asked to have new moorings placed in Stamford/Greenwich waters of the Long Island Sound less than half a mile away from Rocky Point in Old Greenwich. The moorings would bouy large 150-foot barges that would disrupt recreational water activities and pose safety risks, as well as be an eyesore to residents of Stamford and Old Greenwich on the water.Photo: Tyler Sizemore / Hearst Connecticut Media

8of12Weeks Marine has asked to have a new mooring placed in Stamford/Greenwich waters of the Long Island Sound, shown in a photograph taken on May 25, 2019, less than half a mile away from Rocky Point in Greenwich. The moorings, which are buoys tied to anchors on the sea floor, would allow Weeks to essentially park barges there while a tugboat tows them into Stamford Harbor one at a time. Residents say the heavy 150-foot-long barges would be safety risks, since they can get loose from the mooring and float onto the shore. Bill Kelly, president of Rocky Point Club for the last four years, said there are 225 families at the club from Greenwich, Stamford and Darien, and 65 kids in the sailing program.Photo: Matthew Brown / Hearst Connecticut Media

9of12Weeks Marine has asked to have a new mooring placed in Stamford/Greenwich waters of the Long Island Sound, shown in a photograph taken on May 25, 2019, less than half a mile away from Rocky Point in Greenwich. The moorings, which are buoys tied to anchors on the sea floor, would allow Weeks to essentially park barges there while a tugboat tows them into Stamford Harbor one at a time. Residents say the heavy 150-foot-long barges would be safety risks, since they can get loose from the mooring and float onto the shore. Bill Kelly, president of Rocky Point Club for the last four years, said there are 225 families at the club from Greenwich, Stamford and Darien, and 65 kids in the sailing program.Photo: Matthew Brown / Hearst Connecticut Media

10of12Bill Kelly, president of Rocky Point Club, shows the general location where Weeks Marine first had asked to have a new mooring placed in Stamford/Greenwich waters of the Long Island Sound, in this photograph taken on May 25, 2019.Photo: Matthew Brown / Hearst Connecticut Media

11of12Bill Kelly, president of Rocky Point Club, shows the general location where Weeks Marine had asked to have new moorings placed in Stamford/Greenwich waters of the Long Island Sound, shown in a photograph taken on May 25, 2019, less than half a mile away from Rocky Point in Greenwich.Photo: Matthew Brown / Hearst Connecticut Media

12of12A barge crashed into Rocky Point about five years ago, according to Bill Kelly, president of Rocky Point Club in Greenwich.Photo: Contributed Photo /Bill Kelly / Contributed Photo /Bill Kelly

STAMFORD — Victoria Robinson has a picture in her home of about a dozen sail boats in Long Island Sound off the coast of Stamford and Greenwich in the summer, with nary a sight of anything else in the distance.

That’s if a proposal from a New Jersey marine company is approved. Weeks Marine has asked to have a new mooring placed in Stamford waters less than half a mile away from Rocky Point in Greenwich. The mooring would allow Weeks to park barges there while a tugboat tows them into Stamford Harbor one at a time.

For Robinson, who runs the junior sailing program at Rocky Point Club just over the Stamford line, the barges would not just bring an unsightly element to the waters, they would be a major safety risk for recreational boaters in the area, including the young sailors, as well as kayakers and paddleboarders.

Bill Kelly, president of Rocky Point Club for the last four years, said there are 225 families at the club from Greenwich, Stamford and Darien, and 65 kids in the sailing program.

“The area where the sailing program is is right where the barges are going to be,” he said, at a recent Stamford Harbor Management Commission meeting. “When they go sailing now, they are in the line of sight of the club. To change that sailing area is to take them out of the line of sight, which is extremely dangerous.”

Robinson and Kelly aren’t the only ones concerned.

Damian Ortelli, the chairman of the Stamford Harbor Management Commission, said he’s received six to 10 letters a day from concerned citizens and recreational boaters against the proposed mooring.

And at a recent meeting of the commission, Emile De Neree, a member of Dolphin Cove Yacht Club in Stamford, said a true letter-writing campaign hasn’t even started yet.

“This is only the beginning,” he said. “So many people are affected and upset by this.”

One of the main concerns from residents is that barges can get loose and crash into boats or the shore, or damage the aquaculture, such as nearby shellfish beds.

Last year, a company’s barge destroyed a $1.5 million yacht in Stamford Harbor.

That company? Weeks Marine.

Capt. Eric Knott, Stamford’s state-appointed harbormaster, said an additional mooring is needed in Stamford Harbor. Currently, there is one commercial mooring, also known as a nurse mooring, in the harbor. It’s owned by Buchanan Marine, based out of New Haven, which also transports barges to and from Stamford.

Both Buchanan and Weeks mainly send barges to O&G Industries, which operates two asphalt plants, a concrete plant, a recycling center, and a sand and stone yard along Stamford Harbor.

According to Knott, there are 600 movements, or round trips, done by tug boats pulling barges every year in Stamford Harbor.

“There are enough barges coming in … that they can’t do it practically with one buoy,” Knott said.

And, Knott said, the parent companies for the two marine companies are “not exactly best buddies,” so the idea of the two of them sharing the existing mooring is not an option.

At a recent commission meeting, Knott said he worked with Weeks to find a solution. Knott said that while the location of the proposed mooring is not ideal, a second mooring is needed, as it would help avoid accidents like the one last year, in which a tug boat from Weeks was delivering two barges to O&G and one drifted away, crushing a yacht.

Since that crash, Knott said Weeks has “done a lot of soul searching” and has changed its procedures for navigating towboats in the harbor.

When looking for a location for the buoy, Knott said there wasn’t space to place one within the breakwater near the Buchanan mooring.

“Physically, there is not room in that little space inside the harbor to put two big commercial moorings. If I could do it, I would,” he said.

Any areas with shellfish beds or oyster farming are also off limits for a mooring, Knott said.

To complicate matters, barges need a height of at least 14 feet of water, which means the number of options for a mooring were extremely limiting. Eventually, Knott suggested the location off of Rocky Point, which Weeks then proposed to the state.

“Is it perfect? No. Am I working for Weeks? No,” said Knott, at a recent harbor commission meeting. “I have no ax to grind. They came to me looking for advice on where they could put it and that is the best I could come up with.”

Ellen Fullerton, an Old Greenwich resident, said the location of the proposed mooring is like a “public park on water” because of the extent of the use.

“This is the equivalent of saying we have traffic on (Interstate) 95, so we’re going to take multiple 18-wheelers and put them in the middle of a baseball diamond,” she said.

Christopher Bastis, a resident of Dolphin Cove and a recreational boater in Stamford since the late 1980s, said the proposed mooring would also be a navigational headache. He said barges at that spot would essentially block traffic to and from Dolphin Cove, by forcing boats around them, and near rocks and the breakwall.

He wondered if the second mooring was necessary at all.

“It seems to me that if Weeks and Buchanan had a better commercial arrangement, because there’s no more barge volume than there currently is, they should be able to work out something amongst themselves,” he said, at a commission meeting.

Ortelli answered that question with an analogy.

“It would be like if your neighbor were parking their car in your driveway, occasionally that might be okay if you’re an easy-going neighbor, but if they were doing it on a daily basis you would probably say, ‘Maybe you could get your own driveway,’” he said.

The city’s master plan for the harbor specifically references commercial moorings and states that they should not be authorized “unless it is clearly demonstrated by the applicant … that no significant adverse impact on pertinent marine conditions should be expected.”

Those pertinent marine conditions are defined as safety and navigation.

“That alone should have you check the box ‘not consistent with the plan,’” he said, to the commission.

The proposal for the new mooring is merely in the pre-application phase, and is to go before the state’s Department of Energy and Environmental Protection.

Members of the commission voted on Tuesday, May 21, to write a letter to DEEP voicing their concerns over the project, stating there are safety, navigational and environmental issues. But the letter also states that the commission supports commercial boating in the harbor.

“We are in favor of a secondary mooring because there has been a conflict over the primary mooring in town that’s owned by Buchanan Marine,” Ortelli said.

The Greenwich Harbor Commission has expressed similar concerns, and also sent a letter to DEEP voicing their worries about the mooring.

If the mooring were to advance at DEEP, it would need to come back to the Stamford board. However, the local board is merely advisory, and does not have final say on whether or not the mooring is approved.

Commission member Raymond Redniss assured concerned residents at the May commission meeting that the members are just as worried about the proposed mooring.

“There’s a lot of concern right here at this table about this application,” he said. “There’s a lot of eyes on this.”